The Song of Shadows
by Sera dy Relandrant
Summary: What would the series be like, set in Elizabethan times? Lady Susannah is a - in her words - 'pious maiden of unblemished virtue and uncanny fashion sense'. She didn't expect life at Court to be easy. But she's anything but prepared for what awaits her.
1. Prologue

_"Sweep thy faint strings, Musician,__  
__With thy long lean hand;__  
__Downward the starry tapers burn,__  
__Sinks soft the waning sand;__  
__The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,__  
__The embers smoulder low;__  
__Across the walls the shadows__  
__Come, and go._

**The Song of Shadows, Walter de la Mare**

**.p. r. o. l. o. u. g. e.**

_Moonlight dances on the ripples__. Roses, red by day, gilt silver by night, dance in the breeze. It is very still, very quiet. Her feet are bare and she can feel the dampness of mossy stone against them as she scampers down the bank. _Won't Mistress Meade scald me with her tongue if she hears, _she thinks, not without satisfaction. The breeze lifts the hem of her nightgown as she steps into the water. The crescent moon is very beautiful in the night sky. _

_Soft as the rustle of autumn leaves when they fall, she hears a sound behind her. __She looks down into the mirror-smooth water. Like silver broidery on black, a woman's outline is traced there. She turns around. _

_She screams. _

**000**

"You _will_ be good, won't you?"

The pleading note in her mother's voice frustrates her. _I am a better daughter to you than you will ever know, _she thinks, remembering the antics of the cherub-faced village lasses her mother was so fond of, with their swains.

"Of course," she murmurs, leaning over from her palfrey to hold her mother's hand. She takes comfort in the reassuring squeeze that Lady Helen offers her and the faint smile. "What harm do you think I could possibly come to, under our Lady Queen's sharp watch?"

Her mother said nothing but her eyes were wary. _What came of that drab Vavasour girl and the Earl of Oxford? A maiden's virtue is like a dove in hand, slacken your grip once and away it flies. _Susannah turned to her mother with a smile that said, mockingly, sincerely, _I shall arm my virtue in a plate of mail if you so will it, Lady Mother. _And eyes that her mother could not read but which said, _So long as men die and my body hold, you shall have no fear of my bestowing my virtue without your consent on men of flesh and blood. _

Lady Helen turned to her husband – her second husband, the one who'd bestowed her a barony and the surname, Ackerman, such a short time before. Her face took on the look Susannah could only describe as 'dovecotish' and her eyes were fairly radiant with love – or perhaps a certain more earthly emotion. It wasn't only Lord Ackerman's barony that had drawn Lady Helen, whose ethereal beauty was equaled only by her eruditeness in Latin, to him. There must have been some tinge of carnal lust in it as well. A shockingly plebian reason for an alliance, but there you had it.

"Rest assured, my love, she will be safe at Court," he smiled. "With my lads to watch over her-"

Susannah wrinkled her nose – after making sure her mother wasn't looking at her. She rather knew that it would have to be _her _who'd do the looking after in this case. Her newly-acquired – and heartily-disapproved-of – stepbrothers, Bradley and John, could only be described as knaves. What a contrast to little David! She was rather sad to be leaving him… what a pity that he was but a child yet.

"-She shall be happy." Lord Ackerman smiled confidently. _And within a year or two, she's sure to make a brilliant match. _

"_Adieu_," Susannah said, trying to be jaunty as she bent to kiss her mother's soft cheek.

Lady Helen grasped her face with both hands, holding tightly for a moment as though for dear life. "Look after yourself," she whispered in good, hearty English, looking perilously close to tears.

She spurred her palfrey on. _I always have. _Bitterness tinged the thought as her mother's shape grew smaller and smaller, finally receding into a speck in the distance. _I've never needed anyone to look after me. _

**000**

_In the Year of Our Lord, 15-_

_November 20_

_It was a vain wish that I__ made, quite at odds with my circumstances, when I prayed they would leave me alone. I have recanted already. For such Satan's spawn as I, there may be no peace and even at the gates of Heaven they shall hound me. _

_Oh dear, I sound like Mistress Meade. _

The bells had pealed twelve times when Lady Susannah Simon, newest of the Queen's Maids of Honor, rose from her cot and threw a cloak over her shoulders. It was twelve but the tapers still flickered as brightly as ever in the Maidens' Chambers and the voices of the maidens themselves rose and fell in sportive whispers. Their eyes flickered as they saw her, waxen taper clutched tightly, her cloak billowing about her. Verily, she could feel the breath of scandal blowing about her like the darts of judgment piercing her.

"_Lord Ackerman__'s stepdaughter? Marry, I'd have never thought _her _the type to…"_

"_Hussy! Haven't we enough of them, what with Deborah n'er in her bed and even Her Majesty casting those wary glances at Kath__arine?"_

But they said nothing. She passed without censure – for tonight at least.

The chapel was dark and quiet when she reached it. A strip of moonlight slanted, like polished silver, over the flagstones. She smiled darkly as she thought of the devil in this place of good and calm, in this house of God. _Thou sprite come hither, _she thought, walking toward the altar. There would be no need to say anything, she'd learnt from experience. The devil would sense her presence and would come, sooner or later. She stifled a yawn and fervently hoped that it would be sooner though you never could tell with demons, and even less with Londoners. A demon in Whitehall Castle was therefore doubly an uncertainty.

And there it was, its outline etched as though with fine silver thread against the dark backdrop of the altar. It glowed softly. At close quarters, Susannah was able to observe what she had not seen before, in the cacophony of the noontide service when she'd first observed it. It was tall and young and even to her eyes, already accustomed to the dashing court gallants, far from uncomely even though it had the look of the Spaniard rather than the Englishman about it. _Very _comely, indeed.

"_The devil doth come in all shapes, my child…" _

She steeled herself before whispering, "Good day, sir."

And then it looked straight at her.

**A/N: As this is set in Elizabethan times****, Susannah is probably going to be pretty different from Suze. Her thought process, the way she looks at the world, how she thinks of her 'gift'. Same and different, at the same time. XD Stay with me on this! **


	2. chiquita

**.c.h.i.q.u.i.t.a.**

_The vines trailing over the wall sift in the breeze and within their shadows quiver on a strip of polished moonlight. Over Mistress Parry's snores she can hear the soft padding of footsteps and the whisper of silk over stone. Disembodied sounds, like fragments of a nightmare. She pinches her arm, wondering whether it is a nightmare. And then she feels a warmth that has nothing to do with the coverlet of quilted silk draped over her legs. The whisper of perfume threads the air and so low, so faint that she strains to hear a murmur. _

"_Hush, child, Mother's here." _

_And the warmth envelops her. _

**000**

To say the sprite was puzzled would be the understatement of the sixteenth century. It staggered back in a – for a gentleman – unseemly fashion. In a lady, it would have been charming and delicate. On that tall, strapping Spanish gallant it was positively unmanly and Susannah said so. She would have been more discreet in expressing her opinion had it been alive. As it was not, she felt that her manners were entitled to some license.

"Good sir, I would much appreciate it if you were to comport yourself with more dignity," she said, taking a seat at the pew. "I have not come to pay you a social call, that is true, but I see that as no reason to lax my standards. It would befit you to follow my example. You may sit."

The ungentlemanly sprite did not. It continued to gaze at her in the way a rank kitchen-maid might at Her Majesty – in awe and something faintly akin to terror. She sighed and wondered if he had died from a wound to the head – that might explain his lack of good sense.

"I have precious little time to spare," she said curtly, "So I think it would be much easier for both of us if we were to proceed swiftly. I shall ask you a question and you shall answer." She didn't wait for a reply before plunging ahead. Her duty was to send this creature on to, well whatever awaited it, not to mollycoddle it. "What is your name?"

His voice was thick, furred and his lips moved tentatively as if it had been a long time since he'd shaped them into words. Quite understandable. "Hector – Hector de Santiago. And you, M'lady?"

_You hardly look the part of a lord, _Susannah thought with an inward sniff. _Really what is the Spanish nobility coming to? _"When did you die?"

"When did I…?" He stared at her as though he couldn't believe she could ask such an unladylike question. Well, it _was _unladylike to frame questions so directly, but really what was she to do? She wasn't here to entice him into asking for her hand in marriage – this was strictly business and ladylike manners and business simply did not mix, Heaven knew.

She drew her knees up and rested her chin exasperatedly on them. "Good sir, I am a humble Maid of Honor to the Queen and being humble, I am made to endure the sort of labor a draft mule would scoff at. In the Maidens' Chamber, my fellow maids are now at work undoing my reputation – a virgin to wander the corridors of Whitehall Palace by night, you understand – and my weary spirit yearns for the warmth of my bed. So you might understand my plight and why I do not wish to prolong our interview." That was a pretty speech and if he were a gentleman it would appeal to his better sentiments. If he were not… well, she'd learnt how to deal with sprites of the lower order over the year.

His eyelids crinkled at the corners and he nodded slowly. "Go to bed, _chiquita_," he said, a hesitant smile tracing itself over his comely face.

She drew out a long-suffering sigh. Hadn't this creature understood anything? "I am here to help you," she said, in the slow tone she might use with a backward child – or her stepbrothers. "I may not rest until I have helped you. To help you, I must know more about you. If I am to know more about you…"

"Then I must tell you myself." He shook his head. "These are not hours for a maiden to be out," he chided her. "Take heed to your honor, _chiquita, _and help yourself before you help others."

_If only I could. _She yawned. "You are not the first to tell me so. Rest assured that I am still…" She blushed and realized at that moment that though he might be dead, he was still _male_. "Valuable in the marriage market," she had to finish lamely. She frowned at him.

He swept her a courtly bow and gallantly answered, "I have no fear for I trust Her Ladyship is as wise as she is fair. Perhaps it would be best to defer our interview to a later date, madam?"

She looked uncertainly up at him. The offer was... tempting, to say the least but... _oh what harm could a few hours do? _"My conscience would prickle my soul as a burr would my skin," she said gravely. "But since you press me..." She hesitated.

"Yes?"

"You leave me with no option," she said, rising. "We shall defer our interview till..." she pursed her lips. "You keep to the chapel most hours, do you not?"

He swept his hand in a vague gesture. "Perhaps. If I might make so bold as to suggest that you set a time for me to..."

She arched her brows disdainfully. "You seem unacquainted with the customs of this Court - our duties as ladies to Her Majesties bind us to no specific hours - we must always be at hand."

"Then," he said grandly, "I shall always be at hand for you."

She loved him. She would die and marry him and they'd wander around Whitehall Palace and mock the courtiers. Or maybe not. She picked up her taper and arranged the folds of her cloak neatly about her. "Then I shall see you soon. Good night, good sir." She strode towards the door, already dreaming about her bed, when she noticed that he was following her. "Yes?" she asked, trying to be polite. In the back of her mind she wondered whether he was the cold-blooded, axe-wielding type of murderous sprite she was better acquainted with than she wanted to be. There _were _plenty of axes and other weapons strung up all along the corridors... if he chose to slit her throat, what would she do?

"It would not be proper for a maiden to traverse thus freely at night, unescorted," he said, giving her a little bow. "May I offer you my services?"

"Indeed no," she said coolly. _You could be just waiting to kill me for all I know. _She swept out of the chapel and before he could follow her, she said sharply, "It would befit one of your station to heed my words. Mediators are not to be trifled with."

And _then _she swept grandly out, as though she were at a ball, her cloak fluttering in the draught.

**000**

When she'd finally tumbled into her bed, even Lady Deborah (known for reveling late of nights) had already disrobed and was untying the garters that held her silk stockings in place. "Fancy seeing _you _not abed at this hour," she'd said, with a significant arching of her eyebrows.

"I would that I could say the same of you," Susannah had said and stopping only to strip off her cloak, practically fallen into her bed.

It would have been nice to lie abed late into the morning - she would not be called in attendance upon the Queen until late in the morning, after Her Majesty had finished putting on all her make-up, an ardous task indeed these days for she was quite old and (those who'd seen her in her natural state said) decrepit. But, alas, it had been Susannah's curse - some would say good luck, but she knew better - that she could not abide lying in after the cocks had crowed. At the crack of dawn, she woke. A sickly trail of pale winter sunshine filtered through the chamber, illuminating the peaceful, sleeping faces of the girls. Dear hearts, they looked so innocent while abed.

As had been her custom since childhood, she slid out of her cot and knelt on the hard, cold flagstones next to it, to pray. Since childhood, her prayers had been the same. And since childhood, her most dearly yearned for prayer had failed to materialize. There were some who might have taken that as a sign that there was no God up in Heaven, but Susannah was not that sort. The Good Lord had his reasons for everything and she would simply have to be content until He chose the moment to heed her prayers.

When she'd finished praying, her knees stiff from kneeling for so long, most of the girls were still abed. Only Lady Katharine was up. She was sitting at her vanity stand, combing out the silken strands of her long, honey-hued hair with a comb of ebony-and-silver. Attired plainly in her nightgown and morning-robe, she was as breathtakingly beautiful as ever. Susannah brutally shoved back a pang of envy. There was surely a reason God did not listen to her. _You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor._ If she couldn't even heed the Ten Commandments, why should he care to listen to her?

"You seem to be _pious_," Katharine said, drawing out the word 'pious' tauntingly.

Susannah shrugged noncommitally. Self-consciously she smoothed her hair. She knew she must look a fright, with her unruly locks and nose and eyes puffy and red from the cold.

"Oh no, _cher ami_, you mustn't take it in the wrong way!" Katharine said, with a lilting laugh. "A pious nature in so young a maiden... well, it's unusual to say the least in our naughty little court. What a jewel you must be!"

Susannah was fumbling in the wardrobe for suitable undergarments. "Perhaps," she said, her voice guarded.

"Well His Lordship certainly won't have any trouble finding _you _a suitable husband," Katharine continued blithely. "A flower with the dawn dew still sparkling on it..."

She selected her gown. It was plain, suitable for daywear, and white. The Queen required her maids to dress only in black or white, except for special occassions, so that the striking hues and embellishments of her own garments would stand out more sharply. If she were not a queen, Susannah would have been forced to concede the fact that she was an unbelievably vain creature. Pansies in purple and yellow linen thread were embroidered all over it - a touch of grace that might please the Queen as her favorite flowers were pansies.

"You are wondrously silent, Lady Susannah. Can it be that you consider yourself above poor little me?" There was a teasing note in Katharine's voice, but beneath it lay something deeper and darker.

_What, your lover had enough of your harlotish ways and now you've come to torment me? _"If I am silent, madam, it is because I have nought to say," Susannah said. "Your Ladyship's skill with your lips is well known."

"What mean you, Lady Susannah?" Katharine asked sharply, shaking out her glossy hair, an unpleasant look marring the beauty of her features.

"My words are all that my words are and nought more," Susannah said. "You might take them as you please." And then she strode away to the antechamber off the Maidens' Chamber, to change into her clothes.

**000**

Having a mother lauded by court wits as a 'second Sappho, a peerless gem of inestimable value' was no guarantee that one would take up aforementioned mother's mantle as soon as entered public life, so as to say. Susannah had never thought of her mother as an erudite Latin scholar, but apparently that was how those at court who still remembered her - among who, the Queen was unfortunately one. She'd thought that she was an adequate enough scholar - and more than adequate when she compared herself to her stepbrothers - back at home, but at court she suddenly realized that she was but a minnow in the sea.

The Queen's ladies did not come by their lauded reputations as easily as Susannah had fancied.

She'd been called to read Plutarch's _Lives _- in original Latin - to the Queen in her private apartments, Her Majesty apparently being under the impression that Lady Helen's daughter would be as seraph-tongued as Lady Helen herself. Within a few minutes of her taking up the heavy volume however, Her Majesty grew impatient and being Her Majesty did not hesitate to show it.

"God's death!" she swore, laying down the packet of letters she'd been glancing over. "What mean you by this, maiden? If we wished for a half-wit to cant Plutarch to us, we would have sent for Lady Deborah!"

"A thousand apologies, Your Majesty," Susannah said, crimsoning as a few of the Queen's ladies tittered, and bobbed a curtsy.

"And if we wished for such genuflections as you perform before us, we would have sent for the scullery maid," the Queen said crisply. "Your Lady Mother has been lax with your upbringing we see - or perhaps even her best efforts failed to turn a girl like you into a gentlewoman. Lady Katharine!"

"Yes, Your Majesty?" Katharine said, stepping forward and curtsying.

"We wish you to take the girl in hand," the Queen said, nodding to Susannah, who was still standing. "You are known for your grace and charm - and we would well advise you to exercise those charms more discreetly, lest they lead you to peril - and it is our hope that you manage to inculculate some of it into yon forward lass."

"Of course, Your Majesty," Katharine said. She smiled sweetly at Susannah, her long lashes veiling her hazel eyes.

"Get thee hence, child," the Queen said sharply to Susannah. "We have no desire to keep thee near us. Lady Katharine, take her place."

Susannah hurried out of the chamber, Lady Katharine's mellifluous voice floating behind her.

**000**

_Dearest Lady Mother,_

_The snow at London is not nearly as pretty as that back home. It scarcely reminds one of snow. At the present, I am cold and miserable and wretched and made to slave away like a servant. Do write to me telling me you will always love me no matter how much of a 'forward lass' I am. I need your love at the moment. _

_Your affectionate yet sorrowing daughter,_

_Susannah _

**000**

"And then Her Majesty says to me, _we wish you to take the girl in hand_… well you can just imagine how I felt, Deborah!"

The sound of titters halted Susannah in her tracks. She leaned against the stone wall, trying to draw in deep, steadying breaths, wishing her stays were not so tightly laced. _In. Out. In… _It was no use. She clenched the folds of her gown till she felt her knuckles would crack under the strain, feeling the unevenness of the linen broidery on the tips of her fingers. She remembered the fishwives' gossip and silently called Katharine ever foul word she'd ever heard.

_Hedge-born clotpole. __Paper-faced canker-blossom. Swag-bellied ratsbane. _

It was unladylike. It was intensely comforting. Turning, she marched away, not caring if they heard the slap of her silken slippers on the flagstones. There was work to be done.

She wove around the gaily-clad mass of courtiers all heading toward the Great Hall for the noonday meal, not even pausing to eye the handsome ones as was her wont. The chapel floor was blessedly empty – clearly belly-cheer was more important to the gallants of the day than devotion. _What an age, _she thought wryly. She picked the hem of her trailing skirts daintily off the ground and walked down the corridor, enjoying the quietness, the feeling of being alone. It was rare, this feeling, at Whitehall Palace, a constant and painful remainder about how far she'd come from her country manor. She walked slowly, hoping to prolong her inevitable meeting with the dashing – yet unfortunately, deceased – sprite.

As she neared the chapel, she heard it. A muted, muffled whisper. Curious, she slid into the shadows, straining her eyes to see. The corridor looked deserted but… ah, there it was again. "My lord… my lord… please…" There was a pillar in front of her, not slender and gilded like the ones lining the floor, but thick. There must be people behind it! _Lord a'mercy, _she thought. Had she intruded into some important nobleman's private rendezvous? _Lord have mercy, _she thought fervently.

"My lord…"

And then louder, a man's voice, a voice that she recognized – and was hardly pleased to hear. "Hush, wench or you'll have the whole castle upon us!"

Why it was _Bradley. _

"Bradley!" she said sharply, sweeping out from her hiding spot as grandly as a state barge. "What is…" She stopped, appalled at the scene before her eyes. "Why, _really_," she gasped, glaring ferociously at her errant stepbrother. "Have you no shame? No sense of propriety? Get your hands off that poor child!"

The 'poor child' slipped to the floor, her arms covering her bosom which had been exposed by the long rip at the front of her dress. Bradley released her and straightened, glaring at Susannah. "I see no reason for you to interfere in my private affairs," he said roughly. "_Lady _Susannah."

"Your private affairs?" Susannah sneered, not troubling to hide the contempt in her face. This was her stepbrother after all, not a suitor she would ever have to impress, thank goodness. "Toying with a maid? In front of a chapel no less? Brother, I'm ashamed of you."

"The likes of her exist to serve the needs of the likes of us." Bradley's voice was cold and there was an odd flatness in his eyes that would have made her wary, had she noticed. Instead, she continued to rage, her ire taking precedence over discretion.

"The _needs_? You dare call your… your filthy carnal urges _needs_?!" Susannah's voice soared shrilly. Men were vile, disgusting, warped… she could see why the Queen preferred to remain unwed, a virgin for life! "Heed my warning well, for this is the last one you shall receive from my lips. If I ever – and I mean ever – catch but the whisper of scandal about you and any of these poor wenches, I shall… I shall write to your father!" She smiled grimly. "And I suppose we both know what would be the end of _that_."

Bradley's lips tightened and without a word, he swept past her. She could hear his steel-toed boots clattering noisily as he stomped down the corridor. Really, how childish. She knelt down to the girl's level and opened her mouth, in an attempt to comfort her. But when she got a closer look, she gave a surprised yelp and jumped up. "Faith!" she cried, "Why you're a… stand up, child, let me see you in the light."

Unwillingly the girl stood up, still clutching her torn dress. She was pale, as pale as alabaster, her skin so flawlessly white that even a noblewoman would have envied her. Long hair, the palest shade of flaxen, streamed out from beneath her kerchief. Her eyes were like molten silver, as pale, as bright. Why how extraordinary. "Who are you?" Susannah gasped.

"Cicely," the girl said slowly, shooting a guarded glance at her rescuer. Susannah expected her to curtsy, but she didn't. Instead she glowered at her.

Puzzled by her behavior, Susannah said, "Well… Cicely, then, I suppose you'd be best off to your duties."

"What games would you play with me, lady?" The girl's voice was sharp and scornful. She looked Susannah carefully over, her contemptuous glance resting long on Susannah's slender, delicate hands and the lovely pansies broidered in linen all over her gown. "You're a new one, aren't you?"

"Yes," Susannah said, wondering why she was having a conversation with a maid. A maid she'd rescued from her dastardly stepbrother, but all the same ladies and maids did not talk on such equal terms. The girl clearly needed to be reminded of her position. But… pity whelmed her heart as she saw the way the poor child clutched her hideous dress – she shuddered, imagining herself ever donning such a garment –, and at the bruises that marked her pale temple. She'd humor the creature a while – there was no shame in kindness. "Have you ever been subjected to such… treatment?" she asked, trying to phrase it as delicately as she could.

The girl gave an odd laugh, a hoarse, guttural sound that made Susannah wince. "Not fit for your ears, lady," she said. "Well I suppose I'd best be 'off to' my duties, Your Ladyship wouldn't care for the likes of me to spoil your assignation."

"_Assignation_?" cried Susannah, hardly believing that the creature before her was insulting me. "What, pray, do you take me for, child?"

The stinging look Cicely shot her was answer enough. "Good day, lady," she said. If she had been a lady, Susannah would have said she swept away. But as she was just an uneducated country lass who hadn't been brought up to mind her manners where her superiors were concerned, she didn't sweep away. She strode.

Susannah turned, sighing and saw the sprite – Hector, she remembered, he'd called himself – leaning against the chapel door. She stormed inside the chapel, and he floated by her until she'd taken a seat at one of the pews. "Not many ladies would have done what you did," he said quietly.

"They would not deserve the epithet 'lady' then," Susannah said shortly. "Certainly I doubt the likes of Lady Katharine and Lady Deborah would have… but I'm sure there would have been others who would have rushed to the poor creature's defense."

"They would not," Hector said. "They would have looked the other way. Trust me, M'lady, I've been in this court for three generations and I know as much about it as any silver-haired grandee." He paused and looked towards the window. "It is beautiful, is it not?"

Susannah turned and felt the first smile – unwilling, but a smile no less – of the day break over her face. Light filtered in through the high, stained-glass windows and shifting patterns of rose, amethyst and topaz-yellow brightened the flagstones. Columns of powdery golden light shot through the higher windows and pooled before the altar.

"There are others," Hector said, while she drank in the beauty before her, more dear to her for its simplicity, its solitariness. "Soon they will sense your presence and they will come to you, for you are… I know not what, but I wager their only hope of salvation." Gently, he rested his hand on her shoulder. It tingled, not unpleasantly. "Forget me, chiquita, there is nothing you can do for me. But the others…" He let his sentence trail off.

"What mean you by 'others'?" she asked, wondering why she felt so disappointed when he let his hand drop from her shoulder.

**000**

An hour later she understood. Hector had shooed her away, reminding her that she would be late for the noontide meal – at which her presence, as one of the Queen's ladies, was required – and reluctantly she'd hurried away to the Great Hall. The Queen ate at the highest table, under the cloth-of-gold canopy of state, served by her fairest and youngest handmaidens, while courtiers, according to their prominence, occupied successively lower tables. There was not room at the tables for all the ladies, with their gowns made so wide by their farthingales, and so they were forced to eat sitting on the floor, over which sweet-smelling rushes had been spread.

Susannah was just taking a bite of her manchet bread when she heard the sound. It was a curious noise, rather like a wail, low and long-drawn. Once, ages ago, there'd been a maid who'd fallen into an empty well back at the manor. Susannah had heard her wailing piteously for help. It had been a dreadful sound, for help could not be found and eventually the woman had died of starvation down in the well. For nights, she'd had frightful dreams but thankfully the poor woman must have been passed on peacefully to the next world for Susannah never encountered her phantom. That was how the sound she heard sounded like.

She was not the only one who had heard it, she realized. Some of the elder courtiers looked up and the senior-most of the Queen's ladies – who'd been chatting gaily to her mistress a moment before – shuddered and turned very pale. The Queen herself showed no outward sign of discomposure, only drew out a long-suffering and – to Susannah's ears – sad sigh. "Poor soul," she said, before turning once again to her companion.

Susannah shook the girl next to her and whispered, "Elizabeth, what means this?"

Elizabeth looked oddly at her, but the girl next to her – another Elizabeth, Susannah remembered – leaned towards Susannah and said, "Marry, did you hear it as well? What did it sound like?"

The undisguised eagerness in her eyes surprised Susannah. Court ladies were rarely so free with their emotions and if there was one thing she'd learned about her fellow Maids of Honor in the short time she'd been with them, it was that curiosity about _anything_, anything at all, was vulgar and above one of the Queen's ladies. She tried to describe it as best as she could and when she finished, the first Elizabeth nodded, looking impressed. "So _that _was what it was all about."

"Poor soul," the second Elizabeth said, raising her eyes virtuously up to the heavens. "But then it's no wonder…"

"No wonder, what?" Susannah asked. "I cannot guess at your meaning."

"But how could you?" the second Elizabeth demanded, but somehow her tone did not make the remark seem as unkind as Lady Katharine would have made it sound. "You being a country lass and all…"

"It was Catherine Howard," the first Elizabeth explained. "You would have heard of her. The fair rose without a thorn?"

"Oh… yes," Susannah said slowly, remembering the story. _The King's child-bride, beautiful beyond compare but with maggots for brains._ "And that would be…"

"Aye," the second Elizabeth said. "Her phantom." She rolled her eyes gruesomely. "The Queen hears her, and some of the old wartbags insist they do. Hogwash, thought I." Her eyes rested significantly on Susannah. "And yet, you…"

"It is not for us to question what gifts the good Lord has seen fit to endow us," Susannah said primly, trying to look virtuous.

The second Elizabeth laughed. "Katharine told us that you were pious," the first Elizabeth said smoothly. And then her face hardened and with a malice that Susannah would not have expected of so gentle-looking a girl, she spat out, "Base-born whore. She's cheated me of a husband and verily I'll see to it that she pays some day."

Susannah took a more careful look at her. She was very pretty – but of course all the Queen's ladies were acclaimed beauties – but there was a tired, washed-out look about her. There was an unhealthy grey pallor to her alabaster-white skin and a fragility about her too-slender frame. She wished she knew what Katharine had done to 'cheat' this Elizabeth of a husband. Probably lured away one of her choice suitors… but then that was a threat that every girl at court faced, when there was a beauty like Katharine about.

"The more I hear of her, the more I wish to spew a fair mouthful of fishwives' curses into her pretty face," Susannah laughed.

The second Elizabeth giggled and nodded fervently. "And that is what every respectable virgin well-acquainted with her ways, wishes to do!"

"Yet is too craven to do," the first Elizabeth said disdainfully. "_We are ladies, Betsy my love, and we must remember that our place is by the hearth and that milk ought to run through our veins while the fire of the family runs through our brothers_," she said, in such a perfect imitation of Deborah that both Elizabeth and Susannah laughed.

Now Susannah knew that she was a pretty girl – she would never have been accepted as a Maid of Honor if she was not – but she'd felt rather like a wallflower in this court of lovelies. But when she looked up, laugh-lines still crinkling about her vivid green eyes, she saw a few men's admiring eyes on her. Blushing at this sudden attention, she looked down. Sunlight, sieving through the rafters, caught in her glossy brown hair in a delicate web of gold.

"My, my," the second Elizabeth said, "that was _very_ well done."

"What?" Susannah asked, still blushing, though she felt like she already knew.

"Don't be a goose, child," the first Elizabeth said loftily. "Look up, our bonny Katharine's looking at you."

Obediently, Susannah looked up. Katharine was staring directly at her and the look in her eyes was not lovely at all.

**000**

"Your deportment at luncheon left me wordless," Katharine raged, pacing through the Maidens' Chamber like a lioness in white. As though they were at a tennis match, the girls' eyes flitted from Katharine to Susannah, who was lying on her cot, trying to read a book she'd found in the Royal Library. "Crude and vulgar are not words adequate enough for me to express my…"

Deborah was nodding in time with every word her best friend said.

"The Queen asked me to keep you in hand," Katharine's voice rang. "Rest assured, Lady Susannah, that I will not be tardy now that I know where my duty lies."

"If you do not keep your voice down, Lady Katharine," Susannah said lazily, looking up from her book. "The Queen might ask me to keep you in hand."

Someone chuckled. Still lying on her cot, Susannah drawled, in perfect imitation of the Queen, "_You are known for your grace and charm - and we would well advise you to exercise those charms more discreetly, lest they lead you to peril_. Just Her Majesty's way of reminding you that you are nothing but a whore whose only purpose remains to ornament the court and serve as a toy for the men to divert themselves with, Lady Katharine."

There were more than a few gasps and she saw the first Elizabeth's mouth drop open dramatically. _So that's that for craven ladies with milk in their veins. _Suddenly she felt more alive than she had in a long time. She stood up and faced Katharine. They were both of a height, though Susannah fancied herself taller. "You have warmed my brother John's bed many a time, I know. Rest assured, Lady Katharine, that _I_ will not be tardy now that I know where my duty lies."

"How dare… how dare…" Katharine spluttered, truly wordless. "Her Majesty shall hear of this!"

"Indeed," the first Elizabeth said, rising from her cot. "And she shall hear what I have to say as well, Katharine." She fixed her cold eyes on Katharine. "Lady Susannah has uttered no lies, as you very well know."

"You've chosen a fine creature to shelter you," Katharine spat, a scornful smile twisting her face. "Within a few months she'll be lying in her grave, the poor dear. Did she give you that spiel about how I cheated her of a husband, Lady Susannah? My lord knew she would never live long enough to bear him a healthy son and that is why he chose to move on to greener pastures. As Lady Elizabeth very well knows, but did not deign to tell you." Whirling she called out imperiously to Deborah, "Come," and marched out of the Maidens' Chamber.

Susannah sank down to her cot, horror filling her at the insults she'd hurled at Katharine. They had been true, but…

_What have I done?_


	3. London

**.l.o.n.d.o.n.**

_She was beautiful, his mother. __If he chose to tax his memory, he could just about remember her. The shimmer of the pearls lacing about her ivory throat as they caught the candlelight. The softness of her delicate noblewoman's hands as she held him, tending to his little hurts and bruises. Her laughter as she chided him gently for his tears. "Come, love, you'll face much worse someday… be a little man now, my boy." _

_He looks up into the night sky, at the cold glow of stars in the heavens. __He wonders where she is, now. _

**000**

The Royal Library at Whitehall, lauded as Britannica's pride, was nearly empty at the tenth hour past noon. Those who were not dancing attendence upon the Queen were at Lady Dinsmore's and those who were not... well they were, in Elizabeth's words, 'old wartbags' who did not care to waste their evenings in flippant pursuits. They were at their beds or at their work of running the realm, good souls. She alone, of the Queen's maids, was homebound. _Everyone _- atleast of consequence - seemed to have been invited to Lady Dinsmore's 'petit ball', one of the most eagerly-anticipated private galas of the London winter. Susannah rather suspected that Katharine had begged her friend of old, Lady Dinsmore, not to invite her. She could just imagine what the artful girl would have said.

_"You won't want the likes of her to spoil your evening, my dear. Fresh from the country she is, with naught of grace or art or charm to commend her, and a hoity-toity to boot! There's little to be said about her and that little ill. Why her own brothers - she's Lord Ackerman's stepdaughter, don't you? - won't have a word with her. Why, Lord Bradley - ah don't you think he's the handsomest creature alive? Only save for his brother, John, of course - was saying..."_

Unconsciously, her immaculately-manicured nails rose to her hair. She patted her coiffured head to make sure the folds and loops of hair were in place, to make sure that she was lovely and desirable inspite of having to play the role of wallflower. She hadn't a mirror to check - she could hardly bring one to the library without being (rightfully) branded as impossibly vain - but she thought she looked well. Nobody had thought to invite her to Lady Dinsmore's 'petit ball' to which everyone and anyone of consequence seemed to have been asked to. _That will change,_ Susannah had vowed to herself while Katharine and Deborah had preened at their looking glasses._ One day I'll be asked to dozens of fetes, more so than I could possibly attend. I'll be the belle of the season and Katharine will be dust._

A maiden could dream.

"You sit by your taper of late."

Susannah started violently and her hand knocked against the dripping, molten wax of the candle. He winced but she frowned when he made a move towards her. Meticulously, she folded a corner of the Greek treatise she'd been perusing, marking it for when she would next take up the book, and wiped her hand against the linen handkerchief, embroidered with her initials, that she cared at all times. You never knew who you might need to gag.

"I do," Susannah said, her voice soft and even. Her lips parted in a smile as she looked up at Hector. "After your desecreation of the chapel, you have chosen the Queen's pet library as your new haunt. Or perhaps, my personal charms have compelled you, against your will, hitherwards."

He chuckled but the sound was soft, tentative as if he'd quite forgotten how to really laugh. "You called me, My Lady, if I may beg leave to remind you."

Susannah licked her lips. "You are well-acquainted with the ways of mediators. At my beck, the astral realms stirred and you answered." He said nothing. "Queen Catharine," Susannah said, getting straight down to business. "What know you of her?"

Hector's face drooped perceptibly. "She has been smitten by a heavy mace, poor, fair lady," he said.

Susannah's eyebrows arched. "For all that you have been long dead," she said, her voice tolerant and amused. "You are as easily stirred as any man of flesh by beauty. She is fair, therefore she is poor. Good King Harry's thornless rose! She caught herself in her own briar and 'tis atonement she be making for her sins, tis plain from her lengthened agony."

Hector sat down on the chair opposite her and tapped his fingers on the solid oaken table that stood between them. "You know not that, Lady Susannah. Was't her own briar?"

"Why, yes, certainly," Susannah countered. "From mine experience, this earth of ours though heaven or hell to mortals as they make of it, is the Purgatory of spirits. Thus says it in the Good Book."

"Ah, ye of the Reformed Faith," he sighed, looking disapproving. "I, for my part, am of the Old Faith and we were not taught, when we were little ones at our cathecism, to take such liberties of our gospels. Where says it so?"

"Do you expect me to reel off book and passage and verse number?" she asked indignantly. "Perhaps such is the occupation of maids of plain countenance, bluestockings who would never dare aspire to matrimony, but I for my part have spent my leisure hours in more profitable occupations than the study of the Bible."

"A fit answer for a daughter of the court," he said, one eyebrow arching. There was a thin white scar that ran down the length of his eyebrow, just visible in the candlelight. It was rather dashing and it made him - to Susannah's eyes - look like a buccaneer. How thrilling. "How indeed could the task of scouting for suitors compare to the perusal of the Bible? But..." he paused significantly. "I find you at your books now. If this be not the occupation of bluestockings then I am no gentleman."

"You are not," Susannah said crisply. "You are dead." It was a truthful, if somewhat unkind, observation. "And yes, to answer you, twas her own briar. I having more experience in this matters am better equipped to answer them than such as you." She picked up her book. "And I _like _to read. So does Her Majesty, and she be no bluestocking if I be a lady."

He said nothing but his tapping fingers were more restless than they had been a few moments ago. "I am a sinner, and this is my Purgatory," he murmured.

"Yes," she said, not looking up from her book. "Recant, demon, and thy soul, free of mortal restrains, shall hie to the realm of asphodel."

"Or those of fire and brimestone," he said.

"That cannot be helped," she said. "You ought to have thought 'afore you sinned, what your punishment would be." She put down her book, realizing that she wouldn't be able to read anymore. Clasping her hands before her, like a priest at a confessional, she prompted him. "So what was it? Lust? Avarice? Wrath?" When he looked puzzled she sighed. "The sin," she said dramatically, "which forces you to cleave to yon realm of the living and will not let you rescind to those more suitable considering your corporeal state."

"What is yours?" he asked mildly. He leaned against his chair and there was a look of vague distaste on his face.

"Mine?" she demanded, bewildered. "Beyond the mortal run of things, I assure you, I am quite er-" What was the phrase she wanted. "Petal-fresh." _Petal-fresh. Really, I'm going to seed - if it was Queen Mary's day, such an expression would be appropriate but tis not, tis late in Queen Elizabeth's day. _

"But you are a mediator."

"I am," she agreed. "And-?"

"But surely," he said sweetly, the words flowing lightly off his smooth, gilded tongue. "Surely tis a trial to you."

"Naturally," she said. "It be no easy work, as you might well garner."

He smiled. "God has seen fit to smite you with a heavy mace, Lady Susannah."

_"She has been smitten by a heavy mace, poor, fair lady."_

_"For all that you have been long dead. You are as easily stirred as any man of flesh by beauty. She is fair, therefore she is poor. Good King Harry's thornless rose! She caught herself in her own briar and 'tis atonement she be making for her sins, tis plain from her lengthened agony."_

She understood his trap all too well now. "You have a way with words," she said, tightlipped.

"The Santiago Inheritance, they said it of us," he said dryly. "The emissary's brand - we were all born with honeyed tongues." _And the devil's beauty, _Susannah thought, noting the way the golden lamplight seemed to flow over the long, clean line of his broad shoulders, the hardness of his muscles under his undyed tunic... _The Queen would have made much of you had you been alive. _

"Well," she said reproachfully. "Your words seem to imply that you consider me a-"

"Do unto others as you would do unto yourself," he intoned. "Think not the worse of me for all that I am dead. It might not be my fault."

_But of course it is! _Everything Susannah had been taught rebelled against his insistence that he was sinless. It couldn't be! Had she not been brought up by the Bible, was not her cathecism on rock-solid ground? Her own case - that she could actually _see _the unnatural sprites - well, that was different. Perhaps it was God's blessing, that she was one of his honored chosen. Perhaps it was atonement for past sins. She did what she could for those she could - surely bringing sinners into the light was pleasing in God's eyes.

The bells tolled, sending that familiar, excited shiver through her spine. It was a grand sound and though some of the girls complained that it was dreadful waking up to their pealing, she rather liked it. _One two three, four five six, seven, eight, nine ten eleven. _She shut the book. He looked closely at it and smiled. "I liked it."

"Passable," Susannah said. "Strange to say I've always been partial to Greek, though they say Latin is what British tongues wrap around quicker."

His eyes crinkled up and his smile was genuine, warm and sincere now. "So have I."

She rose, taking her taper. She saw his eyes on her and he nodded his approval. "I commend your taste," he said, waving towards the black taffeta, slashed to reveal a layered white satin petticoat. It was woven by threads of silver silk in a fantastical design - she'd embroidered it herself. She flushed at the masculine approbation - it was good to be admired.

"Thank you," she said and then, impulsively, "Good night." She was almost about to add, _Sleep well, _but then she remembered, just in time. It would have been unkind on her part. Flushing she merely mumbled, "Good night," again.

He was looking at her closely, his eyes boring into hers. She dropped hers, unwilling to meet his stare. All of a certain she seemed to realize how tall he was, how handsome and strong. "Sleep well, Lady Susannah," he finally said.

**000**

"Oh twas a terrific bore at Dinsmore's," Bess said. The two Elizabeths - Bess and Liza, as they'd insisted she call them - and Susannah were on an excursion into the city to pick up 'odds and ends' as the other two had put it. They'd insisted that as Susannah hadn't yet been exposed to the delights of the splendidest city in the world, there was little time to be lost. Their itinerary included shopping, having a 'quick bite' at one of the many eating houses - 'just like common folk' as Liza gaily put it -, a new play at the Globe and would culminate in a trip to the Tower's menagerie - typical London sightseeing for a country girl.

Liza yawned for effect.

"But it was a _party_," Susannah couldn't help but point out. "No matter how dull. Flowers and dancing and dressing-up and gaiety - really, I don't understand you, Bess."

"Poor country girl," Liza said sympathetically. "You're so wretchedly young and naive you wring my heart."

Susannah didn't take care to be spoken of thus, but she felt that her position deemed it appropriate that she keep her silence. Which she did, with utmost dignity.

"Ah don't you be taking Liza's words to heart," Bess said, wrapping an arm around Susannah's waist. For a moment she sounded like the Yorkshire girl she'd been, raised to thriving in a house teeming with rough-and-tumble boys, among the gorse and heather of the wild, beautiful, purple moor. "What she meant was that you being so new to court things twould only be natural for you to-"

"Be unable to part with my illusions?" Susannah suggested.

Bess nodded. "They be frightful bores, Lady Dinsmore's things, for all they're said to be so grand."

"They're only grand because she's clever enough to have a good cook," Liza said, and for a moment her eyes misted over. "Her meat pies are Heaven."

Susannah shifted uneasily. She didn't like Heaven to be spoken so belittingly. What right had these fine court ladies to trifle with things of divinity, of the utmost, sacred importance? It was so... well, so _unseemly. _Heaven and Hell were not matters of jest - ah how well she knew - and it boded ill with her that they were spoken of so flippantly. Being compared to meat pies - well, there was a _limit._

"-And the guests all so indifferently dressed," Liza finished. She had apparently been listing the chief defects of Lady Dinsmore's party.

"You oughtn't say much," Susannah said simply.

Liza's eyebrows shot up and her voice was a trifle cool as she said, "Pray why?"

Without warning, Susannah seized the other girl's cloak. "Rose taupe lined with ash," she said. "With _your _complexion. And you say 'indifferently dressed' of others - you ought to consider that proverb about glass houses."

"My complexion is well enough," Liza said stiffly and indeed she was, like all of the Queen's ladies, a great beauty. Her complexion was flawless and as white as they came. But the cloak nearly undid the beauty of her exquisitely-molded, classical features.

"And the cloak is ill enough," Susannah said serenely. She couldn't just stand aside and let Liza continue in the path of catastrophe that she seemed bent to follow. It just wasn't fair. She fingered her own cloak. It was forest-green and darkened her green eyes to emerald, and pinned at her throat by a weathered bronze brooch of rugged craftsmanship. The effect was deliciously becoming - as she well knew from the sneer of envy that had darkened Deborah's face when she'd seen her, fully-dressed. Liza and Bess had squealed over how cultivated her taste was.

Suddenly Liza laughed, understanding. "Periwinkle," Susannah said, without pausing. "To match those pretty, dancing eyes of yours. Not _too _pale lest you look insipid."

"We'll sit together when you're going over those swathes of fabric for the cloakmaker," Liza said warmly. "I'll be much beholden to you for your guidance."

"And me?" Bess said, looking plaintive. "Would you please help with my spring wardrobe? I'm such a goose when it comes to colors, so I never stray from black and white. Even charcoal never seems to work for me."

"Nay but how could it?" Susannah demanded. "You're as fine-boned and bitsy as a bird - you'll look positively like a widow in charcoal or black. White - white becomes you. Virginal is your color."

"You're a wonder, you are," Liza laughed. "Now won't we stir our Katharine's spirits when we come attired all in our finery for the masque!"

"The masque?" Susannah said, bewildered.

"Come, child, surely you know," Bess said. When Susannah shook her head, she gave a crow of laughter. "Oh you'll be the death of me, darling! The Yuletide masque, of course, and it's one of the most anticipated events of the season-"

"Like Lady Dinsmore's galas," Susannah said dryly.

"No no tisn't like Dinsmore's at all," Bess said, as blithely as a bird's. Her eyes shone. "It's just- oh you'll love it! And that, my love, is why we've come out, all in the sleet, to get our costumes."

"Why there won't be enough time to make them!" Susannah cried. "You _could _have told me."

But Bess laughed. "You've never been to Mistress Webb's have you? No, silly me, of course not. Well, you'll see when we get there. You'll see."

And Susannah did.

**000**

"Mistress Webb's Establishment" proclaimed the peeling gold letters on the small shabby door at the small, shabby house. It was squeezed in between two narrow, nearly identical townhouses in one of London's sparser quarters. Dung caked the cobblestones, the lamps were lit low and sullen-faced women in stained gowns and tattered lace caps scuttled about. The place made Susannah shiver. Bess took her hand out of her ermine muff and squeezed Susannah's fingers.

Liza rapped on the chipped, griffin-shaped brass knocker. There was a pause and then she could hear shuffling feet at the other end and a murmur of, "Come in, come in" even before the door was quite opened. A woman opened the door.

In the dimness of the poorly-lit hallway her silvery hair shone like a halo around her head. Her skin was so white that it was almost lustrous and her eyes - _why they're like that maid's I saw! The one Bradley was toying with - that Cicely creature. Lord in Heaven, _Susannah thought, almost reeling back. Bess gripped her elbow and hissed, "Hold your peace" into her ears. She almost added 'Scaredy-cat' but restrained herself.

"Elizabeth, Elizabeth," Mistress Webb - for it was she, Susannah garnered - cooed at the two Elizabeth's. "And you've brought a friend. How lovely."

"Susannah Simon," Liza said for her.

Webb blinked and smiled. "How lovely," she repeated and stood aside to let the ladies sweep in.

"We've come for the masque," Liza said, gliding down the corridor as though she were at Whitehall. It was an effortless and easy grace, something that had practically been beaten into her since childhood.

"Of course," Webb said. "My crystal ball told me to expect visitors."

Susannah started violently, but once again she felt Bess's hand at her elbow and a hiss "I'll explain later - do as you're told now".

"Or perhaps it was the season," Bess said mildly. "Yuletide brings strange visitors to unfamiliar hearths."

"I've had stranger ones, if you'll excuse me, Lady Elizabeth," Webb chuckled. "Stranger by far."

They walked past dim little rooms into which Susannah had flashing glimpses - a boar's head on a placard here, a table piled with herbs there. Dust motes fluttering in the air, and braided rugs patterning the floorboards. A stray sunbeam catching against a mirror, an iridiscent line drawn against the glass.

Liza finally walked into a room, Webb, Bess and Susannah trailing along in her wake. It was as small and shabby as any of the others, but there was a fire in the rusty little hearth and it seemed clean enough. Perhaps that was as much as she could expect. "You certainly know your way," Susannah said stiffly.

Liza tilted her head back and smiled warmly at her. "Ah but how could I not? I was raised at court, wasn't I? And London has always been my home."

"Her mother brought her here when she was but a toddling little thing," Webb said, a quiet chuckle reverberating in her voice.

"And then she met me and brought me," Bess chimed.

"And now me." Susannah's voice was soft, deceptively polite. She didn't know what to think.

"Tis an act of faith, to be sure," Webb said. "Ye must be ripping good friends."

The common expression - really it was almost vulgar - made Susannah wrinkle her nose. She rather knew that Mother wouldn't approve of her present company, but then what was she to do? One had to make concessions when one was with friends.

"Well what would you like?" Webb scuttled over to the table. There were scraps and bits of cloth and books with patterned covers, scissors and a sewing box on it. Like a dressmaker's table. "Now last year my Lady Liza was an Arabi houri-"

"_Arabian_," Liza corrected her.

"Arabi, Arabian tis all the same," Webb said indifferently. "Moor-skinned, they be all, and not t'wall decent to my way of thinking, but then what have you? Young girls nowadays be so- ah, but tis an ill wind bodes none good. And Lady Elizabeth was a-"

"Shepherdess," Bess said.

"You'll be excusing an old woman's fading memory," Webb returned. "So what will ye have this year?"

While the girls discussed this matter of all-consuming interest, Susannah drifted to a little table that had been tucked into a dark recess. There was something big and white on it, shaped rather like a-

"Why it's a human skull!" she cried, jumping back. She wondered why she had been so startled. Surely she'd been in enough cemetries to be acquainted with skulls and bones and thuslike? It was just the element of surprise, she supposed, and it served only to confirm her worst suspicions against Mistress Webb.

The woman was clearly a necromancer.

Really what _were _girls coming to these days, associating with such horrors? It wasn't decent and she was pretty sure it wasn't at all Christian. At least, she doubted, the chaplain at their manor would hardly approve.

"Yes," Bess said indifferently, turning back. "Why so it is. What would you like to dress up as, Susannah?"

"But-but," Susannah spluttered.

Webb wove towards her and gently clamped her hand around Susannah's wrist. "Won't do you a bit of good, Ladyship, to be standing thuslike. No, no - you're ill at ease, I see and tis natural, you being a lady you ain't a-used to such. Would you like a pint? I could fix you a-"

"That won't be necessary," Susannah said, weakly slumping into the stool a scowling Bess pushed out for her. She put her hand on her breast, where she could feel her heart thumping against her ribcage as though she'd run a race. She tried to smile. "I'll be fine - just a little, er too much excitement."

"I'd rather like to be a harlequin," Bess announced. She was toying with a tattered tarot card. "Black and white and a hint of red, and bells for my jester's cap. Will that be too much, Mistress Webb?"

"But of course not, dear lady," Webb said. "And you, my Lady Liza?"

"A faerie," she said, half-absently. "Something wild and aerial and- oh I don't know how to put it. Periwinkles and pale blues and-"

"Lavendar," Susannah said, rapidly assessing her. She opened one of the books on Webb's table and found that it was indeed full of swathes of fabrics. She selected a color. "The very, very palest - but no greens, not even a dash. You look quite at sea in green."

Liza smiled. "And you, Susannah of the green, green eyes? What will you be?"

"I will be," Susannah paused for a moment and then her eyes gleamed like a cat's in the dark. "A phantomess."


End file.
